Tag Archives: News

Our friends at the South San Francisco Community Learning Center are hosting their first Immigration Forum Series in June 2016. Each event will take place on each Tuesday of the month, starting at 6pm.

Please see the English and Spanish flyers below. You can also download a printable >> PDF <<.

Are you passionate about South San Francisco? Interested in providing opportunities for young people? Would you like to get involved and help make a difference?

Join the North County Prevention Partnership (NCPP) as we kickoff a South San Francisco focused network-ing event to explore the ways in which we can collaborate with each other to provide young people with meaningful opportunities so that they avoid the pitfalls of alcohol and drug use, and realize their full potential.

Alcohol is the most commonly used and abused drug in the united states, playing a significant role in the United States’ youth homicide, suicide, and violent crime rates. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) Administrator Robert Listenbee encourages officials from both law enforcement agencies and the justice system to form partnerships with local community groups in order to address this issue. Listenbee also said that it is vital that advocacy organizations never think of children as “mini adults”.

Drug Free Action Alliance has developed a program to hep colleges educate their students on the responsibilities and consequences of social hosting. The program addresses an issue univeral to all college campuses and communities, is easy to implement, and comes in a user-friendly Program Kit that is available here.

The animal experiments showed that offspring of rats that ate high-fat or high-sugar diets while pregnant weighed more as adults, drank more alcohol, and also had stronger responses to commonly abused drugs.

The majority of women int he U.S. at child-bearing age are overweight, most likely due to overeating. Because of the rising prenatal and childhood obesity and the rise in number of youths abusing alcohol and drugs, Nicole Avena, a research neuroscientist at the University of Florida, supports looking into all the possible causes of these problems.

This phenomenon is likely due to how overeating foods that taste good alters brain reward systems while diets with excessive fat and sugar can lead to increased appetite as well as some addiction-like behaviors.

In related news, another research study saw a bump in substance abuse treatment during pregnancy. Treatment is crucial since “any kind of substance use by pregnant women can result in miscarriage, premature birth or a variety of behavioral and cognitive problems in the children they carry,” SAMHSA administrator Pamela Hyde said.

SAMHSA, the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services, has a Services Grant Program for Residential Treatment for Pregnant and Postpartum Women which promotes the availability of substance abuse treatment, prevention and recovery support programs for low-income women and their young children.

An alcohol poisoning awareness program started in memory of Cal Poly freshman, Carson Starkey, will be expanded to all 23 California State Universities. This nonprofit program will teach students how to recognize and respond to alcohol poisoning when they see it. The Aware Awake Alive program was introduced to Cal Poly in 2011 by the Starkey family. The Starkeys support a peer-to-peer method to give students information about alcohol poisoning prevention because they “didn’t want to preach to students”. Although little data exists about how effective the program has been at Cal Poly, the University of Michigan’s Healthy Minds Study found that Cal Poly students intervene in binge drinking incidents at a rate of more than 43 percent, 9 percent above the national average.

Click the image below to visit the Aware Awake Alive website and to learn more about Carson’s story.

The website provides people with many informational resources such as signs of alcohol poisoning, blood alcohol concentration, resources for parents, Good Samaritan information, and more.

Researchers in the department of Psychiatry at Penn Medicine conducted a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial and found that the drug topiramate may help people addicted to both cocaine and alcohol. Because cocaine and alcohol addictions often go hand in hand, therapies that target both may be the best method for treatment. 170 alcohol and cocaine dependent people were tested in the 13-week clinical trial. The results showed that people with more severe cocaine withdrawal symptoms seemed to benefit the most from the drug. The drug also reduced alcohol cravings, but did not reduce drinking.

Topiramate is believed to reduce the dopamine release associated with cocaine and alcohol use, reducing the drugs’ euphoric effects.

“This study further supports topiramate as a promising medication for people who are both alcohol and cocaine dependent,” said Dr. Kampman. “Future studies are planned in which topiramate will be combined with other promising medications for the treatment of cocaine dependence in the hope of achieving even higher levels of cocaine abstinence than were achieved with topiramate alone.”

Topiramate is commonly used alone or with other medications to prevent and control seizures, prevent migraine headaches and decrease how often you get them, and aid in weight loss. Some side effects of topiramate include tiredness, drowsiness, dizziness, loss of coordination, tingling of the hand/feet, loss of appetite, bad taste in mouth, diarrhea, and weight loss. Topiramate may also decrease your ability to sweat, making you more likely to get heatstroke. Those who use topiramate are advised to avoid activities that may cause them to overheat.